California's Second Desperate Immigration SOS

Half a million Californians have to overcome the feeling that there is no hope left for sanity in their state.

That’s the number of additional verifiable signatures needed to qualify the Save Our State constitutional amendment ballot initiative. Half a million more signatures will get the proposed constitutional amendment, which would deny services to illegal aliens, on the ballot this November. But Californians have only until April 15th, to get those half million signatures collected, returned, and verified. Time to get moving, Californians.

Save Our State is similar to the legally challenged Proposition 187, which 60% of Californians voted for just a few years ago. Illegal immigration costs were stretching taxpayer resources unmercifully in 1994, and have burgeoned since then. The immigration amnesty program being proposed could literally break the backs of the dwindling taxpayers’ resources.

Proposition 187 fell to ACLU legal challenges, because of the denial of school services to the children of illegal aliens. For that reason, denial of school services is NOT included in the Save Our State constitutional amendment. But three important things are.

Save Our State would deny driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. While liberals say granting licenses would make California highways safer (learning driving rules, acquiring insurance) they forget important factors. Illegal aliens have already broken the law by being in the state. Granting them such a major privilege while they are illegal discourages any respect for the law.

Liberals paint a picture of a nice ‘law-abiding’ illegal alien, but neglect to mention that nice, ‘law-abiding’ terrorists could get those driver’s licenses, too. And the driver’s license in our society is the doorway to unlimited access to our freedoms – in financial institutions, in traveling state to state, and in just about any facet of our society.

The second provision would require state agencies to follow federal immigration law. How strange it is to have to write that. States are already supposed to follow federal immigration law, but adhering to the rule of law is becoming a lost art in California. (Consider San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s current antics.) Authorities would have to report individuals who tried to secure state services without proper immigration documentation.

The third, and possibly most significant provision, is that it would allow citizens to sue public agencies that violate the law. Elected officials upholding the law shouldn’t require a citizen suing to enforce. But apparently in California desperate measures are needed.

So far, 155,000 signatures have been collected. Because this is an actual amendment to the California constitution, 598,000 are required. And of course, there are bureaucratic niceties that have to be observed.

Signatures must be as they appear in the voter registration office. Individuals who live in different counties have to sign separate petitions. The petition can be downloaded from www.save187.com, but must be printed front and back. (Neatness counts! Don’t give bureaucrats who oppose the amendment any possible reason to throw out a sheet.) Signers must even make sure they reinsert the front page back into the printer carefully so that both front and back face the same way and have nice margins. (The website has a phone number for desperate questioners.)

Individuals can download the petition, sign it, and return it. They can also have friends who are registered voters sign it. They can even take it round the neighborhood, or other places where allowed. The more signatures collected the better. But check the website thoroughly before downloading. Do the petition before you do your taxes, to make sure you meet the deadline in both cases. Don’t forget to share with citizens not online.

This is California’s second desperate immigration SOS. The old saying is, the third time you drown.

It is unfortunate that the SOS committee did not kick off the same time with the Save Our License (Kill SB60) campaign, which was around Sept 03. The latter was able to motivate an angry public to collect in less than three months over 500,000 signatures to qualify a referendum for the March primary. Only 374,000 signatures were required. The SOS initiative did not start until Dec 03, a bad time considering Christmas and all.

As noted above, the main difference is cash. The license campaign had paid petitioners going around gathering signatures. The SOS campaign uses the Internet as their principal tool. They don't have any paid staff, they're all volunteers, so they rely on as many people as possible downloading the petition and giving it out to others. If only they had the necessary paperwork by Sept, the paid petitioners for the license campaign could have asked for signatures for SOS at the same time. It is logical to assume that the signers would sign both petitions, since SOS actually affects their wallets more than the license campaign. Maybe, this is why the SOS committee assumed that collecting signatures for their campaign would be easier.

At this point, we can just try to spread the word amongst our relatives and friends via e-mail and hope for the best. Perhaps, an attached personal letter stating that illegal aliens cost several billions of dollars a year would help. Tell them that California is not out of the woods yet. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, and verifiable in other news sources:

"Even with the $15 billion bond issue, California is heading for a $7 billion deficit in 2005-06, according to state Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill."

Source: http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~1992997,00.html

Of course, illegal immigration is not the only reason for the enormous budget deficit. But it certainly plays a big part in it. I'm sure most clear-thinking Californians realize that the budget deficit can only be solved by cuts in social services or increased taxes.

Customize your e-mails. Try to appeal to their emotions and how it would affect them financially in a personal manner. Tell them that if the Save Our State Initiative fails, Californians only have themselves to blame when their taxes, tuition, and healthcare costs go up. After all, money to finance the state budget does not grow on trees.

If they are working, tell them that their incomes are likely to be taxed higher.

If they are students, tell them that their fees are likely to go up, or they might not even get into the UC system, while illegal aliens attend the university.

References: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/02/27/MNGFF593II51.DTL
http://www.ucsdguardian.org/cgi-bin/news?art=2002_01_24_02
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=207110

If they are older and/or more likely to require health services, tell them that their insurance premiums and co-payments are likely to go higher, while at the same time their benefits less generous.

Reference: http://www.fairus.org/news/NewsPrint.cfm?ID=2379&c=55

I went into the following website categories mining for e-mail contacts and then wrote them short infomercials with regards to the SOS initiative:

- college Republican websites for student leader contacts;
- Republican organizations for conservative-leaning contacts;
- conservative talk-show and newspaper websites for media exposure contacts.

I'm sure many Democrats feel strongly about this issue too, but I'm going under the assumption that a higher percentage of Republicans are supportive of this measure, and will not sabotage the signature-gathering effort. They can always forward the e-mail to their Democrat friends who support the measure.

If you are wondering why I am so passionate about this issue, it is because I work two jobs right now, and I hate my second part-time job. However, it is necessary to pay the bills. I can just see how much more miserable I will be when they raise my taxes, because the state budget numbers do not add up (surprise, surprise!).

There is a silver lining in the clouds. Perhaps, the added mental stress will kill me, and those bloodsuckers in Sacramento won't get a single dime out of me anymore! Of course, with my luck, I'll probably only get a stroke and end up half-paralyzed, my health insurance will run out and I will be unable to afford expenses, and I will end up spending the rest of my days in a wheelchair drooling with no nurse or aide in sight because I'm in a bankrupt government healthcare center, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!

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